I thought the murders of pregnant women and Cesarean thefts of fetuses only occurred in fiction! But apparently that's not the case, as the body of a pregnant woman was recently found missing the baby -- which has since been found alive in the care of (I guess) the murderer. WHO THE HELL DOES SOMETHING LIKE THAT?!?!?! That's just... ick.

Other news items that deserve comment:

Canadian hitman admits to killing 27 — I've had this in a Firefox tab for a while now (since April, apparently) but am just now getting around to mentioning it. What amuses me about the piece is how he's described as "inconspicuous" -- the mayor of his town describes him as "an ordinary Joe, hard to identify in a crowd as someone who would commit crimes." This amuses me because, at least in the courtroom sketch, he looks exactly like the kind of person I'd expect to be a hitman. Really -- he looks just like Tom Cruise in Collateral. If you showed me a crowd and asked me to identify the hitman, I would point directly at him. Then I would duck, lest he see me and start shooting.

US father 'shoots his children' — Another article that's been tabbed in my Firefox for quite a while. What gets me here is the sheriff's comment: "This was not a tragedy. It was a rotten murder." He then adds, "This appears to be the terrible work of the biological father. If that doesn't break your heart, I don't know what does." But isn't something that breaks your heart tragic? And if so, wouldn't that make this a tragedy? Yes, it is a rotten murder, but I don't see why it can't be a tragedy as well.

Also, I am amused by the way that the BBC often puts portions of the headlines in single quotes: US father 'shoots his children.' I suppose that's their way of specifying that this is allegedly what happened, but I like to think that they're just being snarky. It certainly seems that way in other headlines, anyway -- see Earth landing for 'space cheese', Call for 'smarter' drugs policy, and Nigerian Islamist fighters 'flee'. Ah, you wacky Britons.

'Space cheese' sounds delicious.